Reflecting on what we want our school nurse legacy to be was first posed by a question Beth Mattey presented at the New Jersey State School Nurses Association (NJSSNA) 2016 Fall conference. Truthfully and embarrassingly, I had never considered the concept of School Nursing legacy before. When I saw the question, written boldly on a presentation slide, it got my attention. In fact, I have not stopped reflecting on this question since. It seems to be a moving target, one that expands and changes directions as my self-reflection deepens.
What I am convinced of is this self-reflection exercise could change the trajectory of school nursing. Imagine the impact if school nurses made this an actionable goal, creating steps to realize our own legacy. The collective power of multitudes of school nurses taking action on identifying and creating their legacy would have a seismic impact on securing school nursing as the specialty practice we know it to be.
The steps are straight forward but do require personal and professional reflection. Mapping Your Legacy was one of the workshops I attended at NASN and it was powerful. The presenter, Kristin Wike, was eloquent, entertaining and invited us to write down our specific goals and action steps to achieve them. Kristin referred to it as Legacy Mapping, I think of it as a GPS, more like a road map than a flow chart, but that’s how my brain processes new information. Either way, it is important, impactful and worthy of consideration.
Answering these questions may bring clarity, a time to pause the chaos in which we have grown accustomed to in our health offices. Will you plug your school nurse legacy into your own GPS? Why did you choose this route? Where will it lead you?